Huge fire engulfs Sao Paulo building

Scores of firefighters have battled a huge fire that engulfed an apartment building in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo in the early hours of Tuesday, a fire official said.

The dramatic blaze, which resulted in the building's partial collapse, started at 1:36 a.m. local time (12.36 a.m. ET), according to a Sao Paulo Fire Department spokesman.

The blaze is now under control, the spokesman added.

Despite an earlier message posted onto the department's official Twitter account suggesting that one person had been spotted calling for help on the building's upper floors, the spokesman says the department does not expect any deaths or injuries.

The blaze started in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

As many as 160 firefighters in 57 vehicles responded to the massive fire at a building on the Largo do Paisandu street in the downtown part of the city.

The cause of the fire is currently unknown, according to the spokesman, who added that he does not know the total number of floors in the building due to the partial collapse.